Two new air ambulances now in service on Hawai‘i Island

The Atlantic Aviation hangar at Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport hosted at least 150 people on Thursday to celebrate the arrival of two much-needed emergency aircraft for the Big Island.

The EC135 helicopter and Pilatus PC-12 fixed-wing aircraft are now in operation with the Life Flight Network.

“I think we are seeing something truly miraculous today,” said Laura Mallery-Sayre, executive director of the Daniel R. Sayre Memorial Foundation. “It’s an answer to so many prayers. This is just beyond my wildest imagination.”

These aircraft were brought to Hawai‘i Island just eight months after the Life Flight Network and the Sayre Memorial Foundation entered into an agreement to operate the foundation’s recently purchased H145 helicopter for $15 million. That emergency aircraft will go into service next year.

However, seeing that the need for air ambulance service was critical, Ben Clayton, CEO of Oregon-based Life Flight Network, committed aircraft from his current fleet on the mainland to start service on the Big Island before the end of the year.

Life Flight Network, the largest nonprofit air ambulance in the country, plans to invest $27 million into its Hawai‘i operation, starting with the H145 Airbus stationed in Kona and the fixed-wing aircraft that is now stationed in Hilo. Each aircraft can carry three crew members and one patient. Clayton anticipates crews conducting multiple patient transfers to O‘ahu daily.

“This is caring for neighbors, friends and families in their moments of greatest need,” Clayton said. “Many of our crew members are from here, with their own generational ties and their own family histories.”

Life Flight Network will bring out a third helicopter in the coming months that will be stationed in Waimea. The bases will be near the island’s three hospitals, which include Queen’s North Hawai’i Community Hospital, Kona Community Hospital and Hilo Benioff Medical Center.

Cultural practitioners Danny Akaka and his wife Anna performed the Hawaiian blessing. The new aircraft are deeply personal to them because two years ago Danny Akaka suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm and had to wait seven hours at the North Hawai‘i Community Hospital before being transported to O‘ahu for additional care.

“Really a chicken skin moment, because to see the aircraft, we almost relive that experience two years ago,” Anna Akaka said.

The Akakas used a ti-leaf that they dipped in water to bless each crew member and the outside and inside of the aircraft.

Clayton said each Life Flight Network base on the Big Island will have a pilot, nurse, paramedic and mechanic on duty 24-7.

Among those crew members is Mitchell Breese, a pilot for Life Flight Network, who starts his shift next week. He’s been a pilot for air EMS services for about six years and has worked the last two years out of Kona.

“There’s definitely a tremendous demand for [air] EMS,” Breese said. “The community needs it. There are so many people not being transported or waiting hours to get to the care they need in Honolulu. We’re doing at least two, three flights a day, with that turnaround, you’re talking five, six hours to Honolulu and back. So it’s a lot.”

Breese said their patients have a variety of medical issues, including injuries from car crashes, heart attacks, and mothers and babies needing a women’s hospital in Honolulu.

“To bring in another company with multiple assets, it’s going to be huge,” Breese said. “People are going to get the care they need.”

The arrival of the Life Flight Network aircraft is building on the Sayre Foundation’s investment after the Big Island community came together to raise funds for a new helicopter. The H145 Airbus helicopter purchased through the foundation will be operated by Life Flight Network.

For more than three decades, Hawai‘i Life Flight has been the sole air ambulance service on Hawai‘i Island with bases in Kona, Waimea and Hilo, and a fleet of two fixed-wing and one rotor aircraft that have the capacity to transfer up to three patients total between the three.

As of Sept. 1, O‘ahu-based Optimum Air expanded to interisland services with the addition of a Pilatus PC-12 air ambulance aircraft to its fleet, which can carry one patient.

Watching community members, nonprofits and leaders coming together to bring more air ambulance services to Hawai‘i Island is the Aloha spirit at work, said Hawai‘i County Mayor Kimo Alameda.

“Those lives saved are going to be our lives,” Alameda said Thursday. “They’ll be our cousins, our nieces, nephews, uncles, aunties, our neighbors.”

Clayton McGhan, West Hawai‘i Region Chief Executive Officer, said these aircraft are not just aircraft.

“These are lifelines for our community,” McGhan said. “Here on Hawaii Island, we understand better than most how important our timely access to care truly is. Geography can be a challenge. But with trusted partners like Life Flight Network, we turn that challenge into connection, making sure our patients get to where they need to be.

The Life Flight Network operates in rural areas with close to 60 aircraft across Oregon, Idaho, Washington and Montana.